Hugh Danks, The Bug Book, New York, Workman Publishing, 1987, p. 33.

Bug Bottle Project

Look into a clear pond until you sse tiny piles of sticks or leaves that seem to move on their own.

Scoop some pond water into you bottle. Then gently pick up a caddis, in its case, with your fingers and quickly ad dit to the new environment you’ve created.

Look into the pond again, Is there another type of caddis to catch and add to your bottle ?

Very gently pull some of the caddis’house apart underwater. Kep in mind that a caddis cannot breathe out of the water.

Look at the feathery hairs over the caddis’ body. Thse hairs are gills that help the larva take in the oxygen dissolved in the water.

Give the caddis tiny pieces of whatever its first house was made of or even pieces of the house itself. Watch it build a new house.

Try giving the caddis a different set of building materials. It many not use the ones you supply, because most larvaer build with only one type of material. However, someone once succeeded in getting a caddis to build a house of gold dust !